The present invention is generally directed to picked or finger plucked, stringed musical instruments and, more particularly, to a short bar usable for striking and bouncing the strings of these musical instruments to produce enhanced, more varied and richer musical tones.
Finger played musical instruments such as guitars and the like are utilized to produce musical notes and special tonal sounds using fingers, a pick or a slide. With fingers, the right hand is typically used to pluck/strum the strings of the guitar, although the same manner of playing is also possible by holding tightly between the thumb and index finger a pick to pluck the strings. The conventional slide is a hollowed cylinder into which a finger of the left hand is typically inserted and then used to slide across the strings, to produce the familiar long, pitching sound popularized by disk jockeys and others.
The prior art has thus produced the guitar sound effects and notes with methods and devices which have relied more on plucking, strumming or frictionally pulling the strings, rather than on striking them from above with a tool such as a bar or stick to set the strings to vibrate at their natural resonant harmonic frequencies. In general, the instant inventors have discovered a string bouncing tool comprising a short bar-like tool, which is sized, formed and shaped to be loosely held between an adjacent pair of fingers, to freely bounce and resonate at its distal end when used to strike the strings in a hammer like fashion, to produce multiple and richer musical tones and sounds.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,620,701 to Massey describes a rhythm stick adapted for producing single or multiple tones by striking lightly upon the strings of musical instruments such as guitars. The Massey stick has an elongated, hollow frustoconical metal baton with a long slot into which is inserted a rubber striker used to strike the strings of the musical instrument. A cylindrically shaped handle supports a proximal end of the metal baton, and the rhythm stick is used to play the guitar by cradling the handle tightly in the palm of the hand or by tightly holding it between the thumb and the index finger.
Although bearing some similarities to the bar of the present invention, the Massey stick is not designed to enhance and promote the bouncing-ability of the tool. Its weight is more concentrated toward the handle portion, and it is designed to be tightly gripped between the thumb and the index finger. Also, its construction, whereby a rubber striker is insertably held in a slot or channel of a metal body, causes more dampening of the vibration behavior of the tool, which detracts from its usefulness in the manner contemplated by the instant inventors.
Similarly, the device of the present invention differs from the familiar strikers used with dolcimers and like devices where the musical instrument is positioned in front of the players and drumstick-like devices are used with the handle end gripped by the player with the aid of the thumb, rather than solely between the fingers, with the body extending out above and away from the hand.